By Brooks Igo
Staff Writer for The Texas Lawbook
(April 10) – Many law firms promote their efforts and emphasis on hiring and promoting women, but new statistics show that only a tiny handful of Texas legal operations are actually doing it.
Nearly one-third of the lawyers promoted to partner during the past three years at 40 of the state’s largest and most prominent law firms were women – a modest five percent increase from a decade ago, according to an analysis conducted by The Texas Lawbook.
While law firm leaders contend the numbers show they are trying harder and being more successful in retaining and advancing women lawyers into positions of leadership, The Texas Lawbook study shows that the overall statistics are misleading and cloak a continued gender gap that plagues a large percentage of law firms in Texas.
Statistics show that a small cadre of law firms have experienced extraordinary success promoting women to partner, while a large majority of Texas firms continue to lag way behind.
Eighteen of 40 major Texas law firms elected zero or one woman into the partnership from 2012 to 2014. By contrast, a small handful of law firms promoted as many or more women to partner as they have men during the same three-year period.
“It is statistically bizarre that firms can’t promote more women,” said Linda Chanow, executive director of the Center for Women in Law, an organization formed five years ago to address issues facing women in the profession. “There is a big difference between talking about promoting women and actually doing it.”
The Texas Lawbook study, which analyzed three years of partner promotions in an effort to avoid single year aberrations, shows no significant improvement during this year’s round of promotions. The data found that 16 of the 40 law firms promoted no women to partner in 2014 and another dozen firms advanced only one.
Chanow, a former lawyer at Washington, D.C. – based WilmerHale before becoming an expert on gender equity in the legal profession, emphasized that unlike race or ethnic diversity in the profession, the lack of women partners is not a pipeline issue.
Women have comprised 40 percent or more of the nation’s law school graduating classes over the last two and a half decades, according to data compiled by the American Bar Association. Of those that graduated from law school, about 60 percent have gone on to work at law firms – the same percentage as men.
Law firm leaders say the biggest challenge is retention. Chanow calls it the “leaky pipeline” – the women are there, they just aren’t being promoted.
“The onus is on law firms to address this problem,” she said. “It is hard to continue making excuses when it is working at some firms.”
The Texas Lawbook study of 40 of the state’s largest and most prominent law firms found that:
- Of the 404 lawyers elevated to partner between 2012 and 2014, 133 were women;
- Three law firms – Jackson Walker, Baker Botts and Andrews Kurth – voted 41 women into their partnership ranks during the past three years, which accounted for nearly one-third of all the women elevated to partner at the 40 firms;
- Seven law firms, including Bell Nunnally, K&L Gates and Ogletree Deakins, promoted as many or more women to partner as men;
- Women in litigation practices were nearly twice as likely to be granted partnership than women in corporate transactional practices, such as mergers and acquisitions.
Law firm leaders note that promoting women associates to partner is not the only way to increase the number of women it has in leadership positions.
For example, Bracewell & Giuliani promoted 12 associates to partner in Texas over the last three years, and only one was a woman. However, the Houston-based firm added 10 women lateral partners during the past two years, including seven in the state. Additionally, 11 women attorneys in Texas have been partners with the firm for 20 or more years.
“For us, success is not just how many women partners are elected or recruited, but how many we are able to retain over a period of time,” said Michelle McCormick, director of communications at Bracewell & Giuliani. “Additionally, we thoughtfully consider how successful they are within the firm and for their clients, and the level of responsibility they have in varying management roles.”
No law firm in Texas has a better record in recent years of promoting women to partner than Jackson Walker. The Dallas-based firm elevated 20 women to partner between 2012 and 2014 – nearly double the number of any other Texas law firm.
In fact, women make up nearly 60 percent of all new partners at the firm since 2012.
Kathleen LaValle, who has been the head of Jackson Walker’s women’s initiative since it began, said the firm not only wants to increase its representation of women, but also recognize them.
“Jackson Walker expects women to be successful,” she said. “We are not just trying to hit a critical mass.”
LaValle, a Dallas litigation partner and SMU Dedman Law graduate, emphasized that the firm’s efforts at diversity begin with its management. Twenty-five percent of the firm’s management committee are women and its largest practice group – litigation – is led by a woman, Retta Miller.
“These are all signals to women that they can be successful in private practice,” she said.
Another firm that has been committed to having women in management roles is Baker Botts, which elevated 11 women to partner over the last three years, the second most of any firm in the state. Until recently, women were the partners in charge of two of its three Texas offices. Patricia Stanton remains partner in charge of the Dallas office, while Maria Boyce stepped down from that role on Jan. 1 after serving for nearly seven years as the lead partner of the Houston office.
One common challenge women face along the road to partnership is the move to an alternative work schedule for family reasons. Some firms address this challenge by offering flexible work arrangements. Chanow says these part-time, flexibility programs that don’t take women off the partnership track are an integral part of the firms having the most success promoting them.
Andrews Kurth Managing Partner Bob Jewell said offering flexible work arrangements is something the Houston-based firm, which has elevated 10 women to partner over the last three years, including five in 2014, consciously focuses on.
“If people see a path for success, it helps with retention,” said Jewell, who co-leads the firm’s women’s initiative.
LaValle said her firm went as far as making a policy change. It used to be that if a lawyer was a part-time of counsel or associate, she would not be eligible for partner. Under the firm’s new policy, a part-time lawyer is eligible to be promoted to partner.
Another initiative LaValle highlighted is the firm’s relatively new maternity leave mentor program. The goal is to help women be better prepared to reintegrate into their practice after maternity leave.
“It is very difficult to reenter your practice and think about your infant and not have any work,” she said. “This program helps you ramp back up your practice without having the feeling like you are swimming in the deep end or spending hours doing nothing.”
The firm assigns a mentor to be the “go-to person” for someone going on leave. Two weeks before going on leave, the lawyer’s mentor will put together a re-entry plan with the mentee’s section leader.
LaValle said she hopes the program also serves as a counter to the anxiety women might feel about announcing they are expecting.
“We want our lawyers to celebrate that moment instead of being anxious about it,” she said.
Early indications suggest the program is a success. Last year, the firm promoted a woman to partner while she was on maternity leave.
Jackson Walker’s efforts at diversity haven’t gone unnoticed. The firm has been named one of three finalists in its region for the Minority Corporate Counsel Association’s Thomas L. Sager award the past three years, and finally won the diversity award on March 14.
The firm has created a culture of encouragement and shared pride, LaValle says.
“At first we wanted to meet client expectations,” she said. “Now, we do it for ourselves.”